Pokémon Thoughts on pokémon café mix?

[Mary]

So Pokémon Café Mix released today on the Nintendo Switch eShop (and App Store.) For those of you who have tried it out, what do you think?

My thoughts:
- reminds me of that tsum tsum game that has a similar combo mechanic, like candy crush except you connect icons to form combos rather than swapping them.
- the art style is super cute!! Especially lil togepi, amazing <3
- there’s not much story at all
- most of the microtransactions seem to be power ups/extra lives.
- I am not going to be spending money on this game, there’s not that much of a need and I don’t like spending money on microtransactions.
- All in all, it’s cute and fun but there’s ultimately not much to it. Still, I think it’ll bring me some hours of entertainment here and there when I don’t feel like delving into a bigger game. It’s fun to watch the café develop!

 

[Midoriya]

I actually saw this on the eShop just the other day and thought it was interesting, but had no idea what it is. I don’t play too many games like this that are puzzle games, so I may consider picking it up at some point for the same reasons you listed. Also, apparently it’s a free download? Count me in!

 

[Mary]

Also as of about 5 seconds ago it’ll let you download it on the App Store as well. I got a notification for it.

 

[Romaki]

The art is so incredibly pretty, makes playing on a Switch worth it.

I really hate the touchscreen-only controls because I like to mash A during dialogue, but it's whatever.

The gameplay is very wonky which feels very fresh for a match-3 type of game. But I feel like this is going to become so annoying down the line. Like the "firmness" of Candy Crush makes it so replayable in my eyes, the grid and the special candy just works so well.

I'll keep playing for the art, but it's not the type of free Nintendo game that I want to go back to.

 

[Coach]

I'm really liking it so far, I really like the art style! I just reached stage 25. I like disney tsum tsum as well, so this is a cool change of pace from that but still has a few similarities.

 

[Mary]

The art is so incredibly pretty, makes playing on a Switch worth it.

I really hate the touchscreen-only controls because I like to mash A during dialogue, but it's whatever.

The gameplay is very wonky which feels very fresh for a match-3 type of game. But I feel like this is going to become so annoying down the line. Like the "firmness" of Candy Crush makes it so replayable in my eyes, the grid and the special candy just works so well.

I'll keep playing for the art, but it's not the type of free Nintendo game that I want to go back to.

I agree with you on everything here. It’s the art that makes it for me. I too keep trying to mash a, and it doesn’t work

 

[Corrie]

It reminds me of the tsum tsum app. It's cute but I've played that type of game before and got bored quickly.

 

[SmoochsPLH]

Really really cute and fun, but doesn't seem like something that really needs to be on the switch. Seems like it would've had a better life as an app. Deleted it rather quickly so I can't say much, but it's definitely not my cup of tea.

 

[LuchaSloth]

Oh...I wish I'd seen this topic. I just made a topic over in the Pokemon section.

I started playing it last night, and played it more this morning. It's a nice little game for what it is. I've never played a puzzle game in this particular format...but, it's growing on me.

 

[Mary]

Really really cute and fun, but doesn't seem like something that really needs to be on the switch. Seems like it would've had a better life as an app. Deleted it rather quickly so I can't say much, but it's definitely not my cup of tea.

It’s also an app, but yeah, it does feel kind of strange on the switch.

Post automatically merged: Jun 24, 2020

Oh...I wish I'd seen this topic. I just made a topic over in the Pokemon section.

I started playing it last night, and played it more this morning. It's a nice little game for what it is. I've never played a puzzle game in this particular format...but, it's growing on me.

Yeah I just saw it, I definitely would have posted this over there but I kinda forgot we had a Pokémon-specific section, haha. I’ve been enjoying it so far!

 

[Mairmalade]

Art style reminds me of Little Dragon‘s Cafe that released for Switch/PS4: charming. I like the look of the cafe, Pokemon in little uniforms, and the cafe menu items.

Put about 40 minutes into it and the whipped cream puffs are the death of me. Most puzzles scream for a particular item you can buy more of with in-game currency and I scream when I don’t have and cannot afford it (not really).



Not something I’ll play every day but if they mixed cafe customization, Pokemon, and Cooking Mama that would have been amazing.

 

[Trent the Paladin]

It’s a lot of fun so far in bursts, but I have to agree that whipped cream items are the worst

 

[Mary]

Art style reminds me of Little Dragon‘s Cafe that released for Switch/PS4: charming. I like the look of the cafe, Pokemon in little uniforms, and the cafe menu items.

Put about an 40 minutes into it and the whipped cream puffs are the death of me. Most puzzles scream for a particular item you can buy more of with in-game currency and I scream when I don’t have and cannot afford it (not really).

View attachment 278625

Not something I’ll play every day but if they mixed cafe customization, Pokemon, and Cooking Mama that would have been amazing.

I agree with this, I wish instead of the match-3 type format, they’d had a cooking element like Cooking Mama. If they’d done that and given you the ability to customize your café like you said, this would easily be a new favorite for me.

It’s a lot of fun so far in bursts, but I have to agree that whipped cream items are the worst

Yeah, I’ve made it to level 68 and at this point, there are levels you basically can’t complete without the power-ups. Tomatoes are the worst for me! I’m just not very good at flinging them where they need to go.

 

[Mairmalade]

I agree with this, I wish instead of the match-3 type format, they’d had a cooking element like Cooking Mama. If they’d done that and given you the ability to customize your café like you said, this would easily be a new favorite for me.

Yeah, I’ve made it to level 68 and at this point, there are levels you basically can’t complete without the power-ups. Tomatoes are the worst for me! I’m just not very good at flinging them where they need to go.

Oh gosh tomatoes. Equally ouch - especially when there’s only a small funnel leading to the basket!

Do you find you have/get enough power-ups through playing? Or are you at the point now where you’d be forced to buy if you didn’t want to wait for daily bonuses?

I’ve been wildly flinging to make connections and can guarantee I’d accidentally smack someone in the face with my arm if they sat near me.

 

[Mary]

Oh gosh tomatoes. Equally ouch - especially when there’s only a small funnel leading to the basket!

Do you find you have/get enough power-ups through playing? Or are you at the point now where you’d be forced to buy if you didn’t want to wait for daily bonuses?

I’ve been wildly flinging to make connections and can guarantee I’d accidentally smack someone in the face with my arm if they sat near me.

I have enough of the in-game ones (the ones that you use while playing, not sure what they’re called). The ones I tend to be shorter on are the ones you select before you go into a level, like I have zero of the ones that let you start with a café skill. I also am always short on acorns because I buy more moves sometimes. It feels like a lot of levels would be doable except they’re intentionally stingy with the amount of moves they give you, haha. I think if I were inclined to spend money on it, I’d be buying acorns for that.


Yesss, just wildly flinging virtual tomatoes

 

[Coach]

Ok so update from my last post - I reached level 100 in basically a day oops
So I'm on master mode atm and I'm having issues with the 3rd stage - does not help that I can't play as Squirtle yet who is the 'good fit'. So I'm basically just using the party to try and level up ones I don't have playable yet, still need 5 I think?

I do think that the unlock method is a bit annoying but at least parties somewhat make it better. Because for levels I kept getting Eevee and Charmander again and again who I had already got to level 2! I wish you could set pokemon to not appear randomly or something.

 

[Belle T]

The art style is the most appealing thing about the game, but otherwise, it just looks like a standard freemium puzzle game. I might give it a go, but if I feel like it's trying too hard to get me to spend money, then I'll swiftly uninstall it.

 

[Snxwypelt]

So Pokémon Café Mix released today on the Nintendo Switch eShop (and App Store.) For those of you who have tried it out, what do you think?

My thoughts:
- reminds me of that tsum tsum game that has a similar combo mechanic, like candy crush except you connect icons to form combos rather than swapping them.
- the art style is super cute!! Especially lil togepi, amazing <3
- there’s not much story at all
- most of the microtransactions seem to be power ups/extra lives.
- I am not going to be spending money on this game, there’s not that much of a need and I don’t like spending money on microtransactions.
- All in all, it’s cute and fun but there’s ultimately not much to it. Still, I think it’ll bring me some hours of entertainment here and there when I don’t feel like delving into a bigger game. It’s fun to watch the café develop!

I am in love with the art style, but it gets a little too hard at level 40 and above, I’m trying to play it often but the levels are throwing me off sometimes!! But the art is extremely adorable I just... can’t seem to stop playing haha!!

 

[Belle T]

So not that it's particularly important, but update, I guess.

I've played it a bit on my phone. I emphasize that the game's presentation is top notch. More so than with something like Pocket Camp which mostly just cobbles together a bunch of assets from the previous games to make a somewhat functional experience, there's a lot of time and care put into a lot of Café Mix's presentation that makes it very charming.

But I just thought the gameplay was dreadfully boring. I like puzzle games, but I thought as puzzles go it was mostly pretty dull. I feel like there was no consistency or reason that some Pokémon are more suited to some jobs than others. So the game just tells you which Pokémon are best for select tasks, rather than forcing you to make informed decisions based on what you know about the Pokémon's type, stats, or personality. I also just didn't feel like the actual puzzle aspect of moving was really interesting or intuitive. This problem is probably non-existent on the Switch version, but I found myself frequently aiming as carefully as I could to tapping an icon I wanted, but instead wasting a move because the game thought I was hitting something that wasn't even close to it. In some fairness, this is only a problem with the actual gameplay when there's a bunch of things on screen at once. It's not something I think happens on the menus, so I don't think it would be a problem that would cause someone to accidentally spend money or MTX like some mobile games. It's just annoying.

I'll probably be uninstalling it soon. It wasn't horrible, but it just didn't do anything for me.

 

[LuchaSloth]

I liked the game to a certain point. But I hit a wall on a particular stage and kinda lost the will to play after that. It's not as if I have any plans on spending real money to get the upper hand...so, I'm not really sure if I will ever move forward. At least the daily rewards might finally give me the help I need...but, I haven't even opened the app in a number of days.